Wheejack's New Toy
by Lady Starscream
Summary: a.k.a Cringing Static, Peeved Off Shadow. Starring characters from New Friends and Old Enemies. Wheeljack and Bluestatic make a new ray, and convince shadow to be their 'test dummy' written for a spontaneous writing challenge over at livejournal .


Y'all know the movie "crouching tiger, hidden dragon, well, this one's named "Cringing Static, peeved off Shadow. hahaha! this one's for you, darkstatic, hope you like it!

"Unless the secondary output capacitor loop is coaligned with the primary interphase modulator, at a co-currential level equal to the input." Wheeljack stated, pointing to various parts of the weapon in front of them.

Bluestatic nodded, paying close attention to each of the circuits the mechanic pointed to as he rattled off the technical version of how to make an adjustment on the gun without making the power cell explode. "Bluestatic righted himself from his bent-over the gun position, rubbing his hands together with anticipation. "So, when can we try it out?" wheeljack's headfins flashed a light blue in amousememt. "right now. I don't see where there's any other problems with it. Go ahead and call your sister."

"Great!" the blue and silver lamborgini went over to the wall comm, and pressed a button.

"Hey, sis."

"Yes."

"Couldya come help me out with something? I'm at Wheeljack's workshop."

Shadow sounded like she rolled her eyes on the other end, but merely huffed softly semi-humoredly. "I'll be there in a minute."

"Great.! You're gonna love this! It'll be so much of an advantage over the Decepticons and..." Shadow listened with half an audio as she rolled off her couch and stretched. It seemed her brotehr was allways getting excited about something. Gazing wide-opticed at the technological possibilities with an almost childlike innocence. (note: almost childlike). He also had a tendency to have things go 'poof' on him more times than not, and not in a good 'poof' way, either.

About ten minutes later, the workshop doors opened, and Shadow walked through, looking around. "Hey sis, remember that gatget I told you about that I wanted to try out? Well we got it finished and I was hoping you could help me test it out." he started into the technical explanation of what it was supposed to do, which shadow didn't understand for the most part except for "force into alt mode and keep there"

She just nodded. "Let's just get this over with." Wheeljack directed her to stand on the mark and she did so, waiting for her brother to activate the thing. "Sand really really still." Bluestatic raised the bazooka-sized gun and took aim. The "Transformation-lock ray" whined loudly, and Shadow really hoped it wasn't going to explode, like some of her other gadgets. A beam of greenish-yellow energy shot from the front of the cannon, and it felt like being hit by a bolt of electricity. She felt her servos freeze up for a second, then moved on their own, forcing the femme into her dragon mode.

She blinked and sat down, wrapping her tail around her. "Well, that was interesting." she noted, trying to transform back. But found that she couldn't. "Try transforming back to robot mode now." Wheejack said. "...I can't" Shadow looked suprised and slightly unnerved at the same time. "It works! woot!" Blustatic crowed, leaping into the air.

Shadow smiled, she was happy for her brother. "So, how do I go back to robot mode? can you reverse it?" she asked. Bluestatic's ecstatic expression vanished. "Oh no." he moaned. "I knew we forgot something." Shadow blinked, jaw threatening to hit the workshop floor.

"You...what?" she asked. Bluestatic gulped. "Well...uh.." he stammered, looking to Wheeljack. "It's okay, it should take no time at all to reprogram the ray. All we have to do is..." and he launched into the technical version of how the thing worked and how to reverse it's effect. Shadow facepalmed. "Great. I have to be a dragon for the next hour. I really hope you guys know how to fix this." she mumbled, and walked out towards the rec room.

------------

shadow stared into her energon cube. she wasn't really deep in thought. Just trying to figure out how to drink it without her long snout getting in the way. She tried to take a sip, and wound up spilling it down the front of her armor. "Ugh." she decided not to try that again, and set the cube on the table. She brought out a laptop, deciding to get onto the internet to pass the time. she logged onto her livejournal, even though it wasn't that easy to type with claws.

January 13th, 1990

"Yeah well earth is nice even though it's a tad cold in January the air is thick enough for me to glide on for hours without straining myself. Had a race with the airialbot's today (well only three of them actually); they're pretty good fliers though they still have no idea how to manuver in tight spaces. Heh I don't think I need to tell you who won. I might not be the fastest but I do know my stuff; I lived in a warzone for most of my life but at least I had a time where I didn't have to fight; were as fighting seems to be all they know. In a way I guess I feel sorry for them.

Anyhow I had a talk with Prime about some of the things that happened way back; heh explaining my past is never something I'm comfortable with. It's not that I'm ashamed of what I've done (well except for one thing) heck most of the time I am and was quite happy with it. Nah I just worry for Bluestatic's sake. As I wrote in a previous entry about some of my 'aquaintences' yeah well I think they've actually followed me here. Lets just hope with so many autobots about they wont try anything too dumb.

Prime seemed understanding at least which is good; I hope. He asked me a few questions and told me that he was greatful that I had told him. Which usually means that everything's alright. Sigh As for what I told him...there is no way in this life I'm going to write that down. Especially where it could be found by the d-cons or other prying optics."

She tried to think of what to say next, flicking the end of her tail back and forth when suddenly she felt something hit her tail, and a clang sounded. She turned around to see Tracks sprawled on the floor behind her. He picked himself up, muttering obscenities, and glared at her.

"whatch where you put your tail, g'shh 'naang pteft ch-knafft!..." and so on and so forth. To as human it would have sounded like a series of bleeps and computery noises, but the dragon knew exactly what it meant. She growled. "I can't help it I'm stuck in dragon mode, and I can't help it I take up so much space, so why don't you shove off, eh?"

Tracks glared daggers. "Just look what you did to my finish! do you know how long it takes to get this kind of a lustre." he sniffed. Shadow sat up, blowing a tiny puff of smoke. "And it's gonna get a lot worse if you don't leave me alone."

Tracks smartly backed off. He mumbled some some choice words as he walked away, looking for someone to moan to about his finish.

The dragon eyed the Corvette, then went back to her typing.

"Anyhow apart from that and an energy raid things haven't been too bad. Bluestatic got his gadget to work; Wheeljack seemed very happy about it. As for how I know how it worked; let me just say I ought to write test dummy on my forehead and stay in the lab. The reason for this...I am currently stuck in dragon-mode taking up a lot of floor space as I am quite happily sprawled out on the floor typing into this computer. Heh I'm glad I know how to be delicate with my claws on this PC would be a mess after I'm through with it."

The Dinobots wandered in, and Shadow managed to get her tail out of the way before Sludge walked on it. Unfortunately, it went right into the path of Grimlock's heavy tread.

"GYAAAAAAAAAHH!!!" Shadow shot up, stopping Grimlock in his steps.

"Why dragon-bot yell so loud? you hurt me, Grimlock's ears." the T-rex asked, tilting his head to one side.

"y--ha-ny-sta-ha-" shadow stuttered, trying to make the words come out. Grimlock blinked, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. Shadow yelped.

"What Shadow trying to say?" swoop inclined his head curiously. Shadow finally managed to whisper "you're st-standing on m-my ta-ail." Grimlock looked down and backed off. Shadow snatched up the abused appendage and tried not to give in to the impulse to fry the offending party with her flame-breath.

"Hm. Me Grimlock say Dragon bot should keep tail to self." And with that, he stomped off. Shadow glared after him, but the pain was starting to fade a little. She rubbed her now-nearly flattened tail, and tried to hurriedly finish her journal entry. She finally hit the 'send' button, deciding it would be best to add to it later. Her tail was complaining too loudly to be ignored..

She got to the repairbay, and ratchet looked up warily at the dragon as she entered. 'May I help you?" he asked, eyeing her wings. Hopefully they wouldn't fan out and hit anything. he'd just reorganised his stuff, and he'd hate for something to get knocked out of place.

"My tail." She complained.

She explained what had happened, finishing and looking at him expectantly. He waited half a beat, then started cursing.

"And you let them shoot you with a ray that would make you stay stuck in your alt mode without asking about a reversal? He wasn't swearing at Shadow, just Wheeljack and his hair-brained schemes.

"And he should have known better than to trick you into being his guinea-pig-atron!" He started working on the dragon's tail, the whole time muttering things under his breath like "he should have known better." and "He allways forgets to think ahead...allways forgets some part of whatever he's working on..." he finally trailed off about the same time as he finished.

"There." he stood back as the dragon ispected the repairs. "Thank you." she said.

"Just don't let Wheeljack and your brother con you into doing any more experiments with them, okay?" his tone was grouchy, but he meant it in a less-than grouchy way. She started to walk out.

"Oh, and stay away from the Dinobots. I don't wanna see you in here again, okay?"

"I'll try." she called over her shoulder.

Once the repairbay doors closed behind her, he commed Wheeljack and let him have it.

"I'm hurrying." Wheeljack said apologetically, glancing at where Bluestatic was working on the ray.

Shadow went to her quarters she'd been given by the Autobots, and sprawled out lazily on the floor, deciding to add to the last bit of journal before she forgot.

"That and I've had Tracks trip over my tail, call me every name under the sun to which I told him to get moving or he'd find out how hot my flamethrower is; needless to say he left in a huge sulk. Then I had the dinobots actually step on my tail; to which I howled so loudly that most of the autobots rushed into see what was wrong. Needless to say both Bluestatic and Wheeljack got a severe berating by Ratchet for causing me to be stuck like this. They're currently building a device to allow me to transform back into robot-mode.

Anyhow my tail's been fixed and is no longer as flat as a pancake and I'm sprawled on the floor feeling as bored as hell."

She looked around and sighed. There was nothing to do. Not as a dragon at least. Unless she wanted to go fly around for a bit. Hmm, that sounded like a good idea, come to think of it.

The red-on-black dragon took to the air with a couple wingbeats, and glided around the mountain a couple times. Ah, this was better!

She finally landed, and Wheeljack commed her. They had finally gotten the ray fixed! she hurried to the workshop, narrowly avoiding rinning into a couple Autobots on the way. She practically burst through the door. "Now this may not work but I'll give it a try." Wheeljack warned.

"just shoot me." the dragon replied.

"A little grouchy are we?" Bluestatic quipped. Shadow replied with a glare.

"Point taken." Bluestatic blinked. He went over to the gun and aimed it at her. He tried to give her puppy-dog-optics, hoping she'd forgive him for doing this to her. She rolled hers. "Oh stop. I forgive you allready, okay?" she smiled.

Sure, her little brother might do some stupid things once in a while, but she'd allways forgive him. That was what siblings did, right?

He fired, and Shadow waited. Nothing felt different. She tried to transform. Her dragon head slid away to reveal her grey face, and arms and legs appeared. Shadow stretched.

"It worked! woohoo!" Bluestatic yelled, he and Wheeljack high-fived each other. Shadow just nodded. "You finally did something right, stats. It hasn't gone boom yet-

POP! the ray threw a spout of sparks out the side.

"I spoke too soon, didn't I?" Shadow commented.

Wheeljack ran over to try and stop it.

Bluestatic's optics went round and he grabbed Shadow and ducked

"POOF! BLAM!"

The 'gun' let out a large puff of yellowish green smoke, then promptly exploded in a shower of sparks. Wheeljack coughed and tried to wave the smoke away. Bluestatic and Shadow's heads appeared over the edge of the table. Wheeljack's face was soot black, like one of thiose silly terran cartoons.

"Well." he coughed. "At least it worked for a little while (cough cough.)".

The two stood up. "I guess it could have been wo-"

"DON'T SAY IT!" both shadow and static chorused.

Wheeljack blinked. "Aw heck. back to the drwing board, I guess." He pulled out the datapad with the schematics on it. "I'll help." Static volunteered. The two started rattling off technical jargon, discussing what could be wrong with it and how they could fix it. Shadow shook her head and walked out. She stretched before heading down the hall. "Ah, feels good to be in robot mode again."

((I know I left out the part about Shadow's tail being used for a jump rope by the Dinobots, but I wasn't sure how friendly shadow and them are, especcially after Grimlock stepping on her tail like that. Hope you liked it!)) 


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